That’s an increasefrom nine black billionaires a year ago, Forbesreports.
Three of the 11 black Forbes List billionaires are women, and two of thethree womenare African. Thethird is a U.S. citizen with heavy interests in South Africa.
This year, two new billionairesjoined the ranks of the richest black people on Earth — one U.S. citizen and one Nigerian.
Nigeria is the clear standout when it comes to billionaires. Almost half the wealthiest blacks on the planet are Nigerian.
Check outour list. Of the world’s 11 black billionaires, 9 are African.
11. Abdulsamad Rabiu, $1 billion Nigerian, Cement, Sugar
Rabiu founded BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate ofshipping, manufacturing, oil and gas, sugar refineries, cement production, real estate, steel and port concessions.The group hasannual revenues in excess of$2 billion.Abdulsamad started outworking for his father, Isyaku Rabiu, a successful businessman inNorthern Nigeriabefore strikingout on his own. In 1988, he started importingsteel and iron,edible oils, sugar and rice.
10. Femi Otedola, $1 billion Nigerian, Gas stations
Otedola, 50, got rich with power generation and gas stationownership. He’scontrolling shareholder of Forte Oil, one of West Africa’s largest downstream oil companies, with amarket capitalizationof$1 billion. Thecompany manufactures its own line of engine oils, andowns fuel storage depots and gas stations. He’s new to the Forbes list this year.
9. Michael Jordan, $1 billion U.S.,Basketball

Known for his competitive personality on the court and off, Michael Jordan is an entrepreneur who shoots way beyond basketball. The sport’s greatest player, he’s also majority shareholder of the Charlotte Hornets, a pro basketball team based in North Carolina that plays in the NBA.. His biggest source of incomeis from Brand Jordan, a sportswear partnership with Nike that does $1 billion in sales. He’s new to the list this year.
8. Mo Ibrahim, $1.1 billion –
Sudanese/British, Mobile Telecoms, Investments
Sudanese-born Mo Ibrahim foundedCeltel, an African mobile phone company, which he sold to Kuwait’s MTC for $3.4 billion in 2005. He is the founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which promotes good governance in Africa and awards the annual Mo Ibrahim prizefor Achievement in African Leadership – a lifetime award of $5 million given over 10 years to retired African presidentswho weretransparent and served terms set by their countries’ constitutions.Nelson Mandela was an honorary recipient. Here’s what Ibrahim said about presidents who just won’t go away: “Power is very seductive. If you control a country for some time, then there comes a point where you feel indispensable.”
7.Folorunsho Alakija, $1.9 billion –Nigerian, Oil
Nigeria’s only female billionaire started outas a secretary in a Nigerian bank in the 1970s, then quit her job to study fashion design in England. She founded a Nigerian fashion label catering to wealthyclientsincluding first ladies. Shefounded Famfa Oil, a Nigerian company witha substantial ownershipinterest in OML 127, an oil block on the Agbami deep water oilfield in Nigeria.
Here’s some wisdom fromAlakija in an AfricaTopSuccess story:“money
has nothing to do with love. Love comes from inside. Money
is something that we acquire over time. Love is all that unites us from the beginning … it is 40 years since my husband and I have known eachother.”
6. Patrice Motsepe, $2.1 billion –South African, Mining
South Africa’s first black billionaire, Patrice Motsepe founded African Rainbow Minerals, a publicly traded firm that mines and processes gold, platinum, coal, iron, manganese, chrome, copper and nickel.Motsepe is also president and owner of the Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club, and ownsa stake in Sanlam, a listed financial services firm.
His entrepreneurial spirit emergedas a child when he would wake early to sell alcoholto mine workers at his father’s shop, according to BlackEntrepreneur. “I must have been about 8when my dad said one day, ‘We make so much money
when you’re behind the counter you should take over the business when you grow up.’” He clearly over reached.
5. Oprah Winfrey, $2.9 billion –U.S., TV
Oprah, once the queen of daytime TV, is the richest African-American in the world. Her once-struggling cable channel,OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) is now cash-flow positive. Ratings are soaring followinga series of successful sitcom and dram collaborations with director Tyler Perry.
After filming a Christmas program in South Africa, she established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls near Johannesburg. Her generosity includedcelebrating the startof her 20th season on national TVby giving everyone in the studio audience a new Pontiac automobile, according to Achievement.org
4. Isabel Dos Santos, $3.3 billion –Angolan, Investments
The oldest daughter of Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, she’s the world’s richest black woman. Her connections to power helped heraccumulate stakes in blue-chip Angolan companies, according to Forbes. In Portugal she also owns nearly 7percentof oil and gas firm Galp Energia alongwithPortuguese billionaire Americo Amorim.Her assets include a stake in Banco BIC, and25-percent ofUnitel, the largest mobile phone network in Angola.
3. Mike Adenuga, $4 billion Nigerian, Oil
Maker of many fortunes, Adenuga made his first fortune selling Coca-Cola and lace after returning from studyingin the U.S. He made friendswith Nigerian military leadersand landed governmentcontracts. His mobile telecommunications company,Globacom, is the Nigeria’s second largest after South Africa’s MTN. He ownsConoil, one of Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil exploration companies.
2. Mohammed Al-Amoudi, $10.9 billion – Construction, Oil
Ethiopian/Saudi Arabian, Oil Son of a Saudi father and Ethiopian mother, Al-Amoudi was born in Ethiopia in 1946. He made his first fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia. He owns a significant stake in the National Oil Company of Ethiopia. In Ethiopia he also invested in gold mining, agriculture and cement production. Outside Ethiopia, he owns oil fields off the West African coast and oil refineries in Sweden and Morocco.
1. Aliko Dangote, $15.7 billion Nigerian, Sugar, Cement, Flour
Still the richest black person in the world, Dangote has lost close to $10 billion since March 2014. Devaluation of the nairaand falling stock prices hurt his four publicly-listed companies, but not his ranking on this list. Dangote, 57, made his first fortune sellingcement, sugar and flour, and his secondmanufacturing them. Dangote Cement is Africa’slargest cement manufacturer, and is worth $15 billion. Dangote is building an oil refinery, due for completion in 2016with a400,000-barrels-a-day capacity. He hopes toreduce Nigeria’s dependence on oil imports.
africanleadership Magazine
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